Review
Unique plot leads to typical ending
April 30, 2010
Artificial insemination, finding the man of your dreams, and a two legged dog. Oh my! All these things— and mor— make Jennifer Lopez’s new film, “The Back- Up Plan,” stand out from her other films. Lopez plays a single woman who opts for artificial insemination after dating for years and failing to find the right guy, only to see the man of her dreams breeze into her life just as she learns she’s pregnant. It seemed a realistic role for Lopez, as she is in her forties, but still could pass for much younger.
I have never really seen a movie about a single woman getting inseminated, so I found this film very interesting and unique. One can’t expect much from a Jennifer Lopez film, but I thought this one was pretty memorable and different from most of her other work. It was definitely a chick flick with some women empowerment undertones, although she ends up finding a man right away. It had a lot of humor, so guys might enjoy it to some extent as well, but could also be left terrified, especially if they’re expecting.
I also found Alex O’Loughlin quite intriguing as the love interest. His character is a goat farmer, who makes and sells cheese at the local market. I don’t think I’ve ever came across a goat farmer in any other film I’ve seen and I definitely wouldn’t expect it in a romantic comedy.
One of my favorite characters was Nutsy, Lopez’s two-legged dog in the film. Adding a cute and entertaining pet can’t hurt as long as it doesn’t get too annoying. Saturday Night Live cast member Michaela Watkins was funny and entertaining as Lopez’s sister Mona, a busy and unenthused mother of three. Linda Lavin also had a memorable role as Lopez’s fiercely independent grandma.
The funniest parts of the film are when Lopez attends a single mother support group, with a very strange, but entertaining, group of women. The group is headed by Melissa McCarthy’s character, a hippie therapist with some pretty abstract ideas. I laughed harder than I’ve laughed in quite some time at a scene in which one of the members of the group gives birth in a kiddie pool while McCarthy bangs a drum and whales tribal chants.
All in all, it was an entertaining and unique film, but at the same time is just another romantic comedy. I have to give it credit for having some really unique elements to it, but to some extent it follows the same formula, except a little backwards. It could’ve proved a lot more by leaving Lopez on her own to take care of the baby she wanted in the first place, but like in nearly all romantic comedies, the man and woman need to end up together. In that respect, this movie really wasn’t that different at all. It had all the right intentions of adding something really different to a romantic comedy, but it definitely could’ve been better.
Natalie Conrad is a junior journalism and marketing communications major and French minor. She enjoys running,reading, writing, playing guitar, and traveling.